Reflecting Anew on “Dramatic Worlds in Play: A Study of The Dramatic Play of Preadolescent Girls”

Abstract

“Dramatic Worlds in Play” was a doctoral research project generated to gain a deeper understanding of the dramatic play of one group of preadolescent girls. ¹ Conducted within the context of an after-school drama club, this research was driven by a desire to know more about the nature of group dramatic play in older children and an interest in determining the dramatic qualities of this play. This paper focuses on three of the key findings of this research, including detail about how the players constructed private and shared dramatic Worlds as they played, the text creation processes they used, and a brief examination of how the players manipulated the elements of drama within these spontaneously generated play texts, The paper then moves on to explore the impact these findings have had upon my current practices as a drama educator, including in particular the development of a new approach to the teaching ofextended improvisation within a university context.